Chapter 7
9 A.M.
Today's weather setting was slightly cloudy, and the morning mist that covered the city still hadn't cleared. The light that shone from outside was reflected off it, dyeing the surroundings in a lemon-yellow color.
According to the Aincrad calendar, it was the «Month of the Ash Tree», which meant that we were getting further into fall. The temperature was slightly cold, making this the most refreshing month of the year. But right now, I felt a little under the weather.
I was waiting for Asuna at the gate plaza in the living area of the 74th floor. I couldn't sleep last night for some reason, and all I did in my simple bed in Algade was toss about in one way or another. I think I managed to fall asleep a little past three in the morning. There were plenty of features in SAO that helped the player, but sadly a button that could make you fall asleep wasn't one of them.
Oddly enough, the opposite did exist. In the time-related options of the menu, there was something called «Alarm Clock» which forced the player to wake up from their sleep. Of course, the choice of going back to sleep again or not was entirely up to you, but I succeeded in gathering enough will-power to crawl out of my bed when the system woke me up at ten to nine.
Perhaps to the blessing of the lazier players, there was no need to wash or change in the game—although some of the stranger players seem to bathe on a daily basis. But since replicating a completely liquid environment was hard even for the Nerve Gear, it couldn't reproduce a real bath perfectly. After waking up a little too close to the meeting time, I put on all my equipment in twenty seconds and walked out of Algade's teleport gate with a slight sway out to where I, slightly annoyed by the lack of sleep, waited for her, but—
“She's late...”
The time was already ten past nine. Diligent gamers were appearing from the gate and walking towards the Labyrinth area one after another.
With nothing much to do, I looked at the labyrinth map and the completion rates of my skills, stats that I already knew mostly by heart.
Ahh, I wish I had a portable game console or something.
I was rendered speechless by that sudden thought. To want to play a game within a game, I was getting worse.
Should I just go back and sleep... I even started thinking. Another blue teleport effect appeared inside the gate for god knows how many times. I watched without much expectation. But then—
“Kyaaaaa! Please get out of the way—!”
“Ahhhhhh!?”
Usually players who teleported appeared on the ground, but this person appeared a meter off it and—flew through the air, heading straight for me.
“Huh, huh...!?”
Without any time to catch or dodge, we collided and fell to the ground in a single heap. I hit the back of my head on the stone ground, hard. If I wasn't inside of a settlement, a couple of dots from my HP would have been taken away.
This meant—that this idiot player had, most likely, jumped into the gate from the other side and appeared like that here. The thought flashed calmly though my mind. Still a bit dizzy, I raised my arm and grabbed the idiot on top of me in an attempt to push the person off.
“...Hmm?”
The feeling of something strange and full registered in my hand. I squeezed it twice, and three times to figure out what the springy and rich feeling in my hand was.
“K-Kya—!!”
Suddenly, a loud scream sounded in my ear and my head hit the ground again. At the same time, the weight lifted from my body.
